WFP suspends operations in Northeastern Uganda

The U.N. World Food Programme has temporarily suspended operations in the drought-hit area of North-eastern Uganda after gunmen ambushed a WFP convoy and killed the agency’s driver. Richard Achuka, 41, was shot in the neck and shoulder and died after the attack on four WFP trucks in Kotido district. The convoy had delivered food to schools and other sites in Kaabong district. The attackers fled the scene.

The WFP Country Director, Tesema Negash strongly condemned the vicious attack on a clearly marked WFP humanitarian convoy and demanded that the killers be pursued and brought to justice. He then declared a temporary suspension of WFP activities in the region until security is improved.

The agency started distributing food to half a million people in Karamoja, an area hit by a third drought in six years, in January 2007. The region is the poorest in Uganda and has a single rainy season from June to August: almost 70 percent of its inhabitants, nomadic pastoralists, receive aid. Read more here

The photo taken by Global Action on Aging shows an elderly man in his mud-wattle house in Northeastern Uganda.

Bush imposes new sanctions on Sudan

The Associated Press today reported that in a plan B aimed at pressurizing the Sudan government to end bloodshed and wide spread violence in the Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur, the U.S. president George. W. Bush has ordered new U.S. economic sanctions.

The sanctions target government-run companies involved in Sudan’s oil industry, and three individuals, including a rebel leader suspected of being involved in the violence in Darfur.

Bush had prepared to impose the sanctions last month, but held off to give U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon more time to find a diplomatic end to the four-year crisis in which more than 200,000 people have been killed and over two million displaced.

Beyond the new U.S sanctions, Bush directed Secretary of Sate Condoleezza Rice to draft a proposed U.N. resolution to strengthen international pressure on the Sudanese government of President Omar Al-Bashir.

However, the Sudan government criticized Bush’s action; Sudan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq told the Associated Press that the decision was unfair and untimely, and urged the rest of the world to ignore the U.S move. Read more here

International day for U.N. Peacekeepers

Tuesday May 29 2007 marked five years since the international day of United Nations Peacekeepers was designated to pay tribute to the forces around the globe: U.N. Peacekeepers day was established in 2002, when the General Assembly adopted Resolution 57/129 which selected May 29 (the day the first UN Peacekeepers operation was established in 1948).

Since 1948, UN Peacekeepers have undertaken 61 field missions, negotiated 172 peaceful settlements that have ended regional conflicts, and enabled people in more than 45 countries to participate in free and fair elections. In recent years UN Peacekeeping operations have expanded considerably and there are now approximately 83,000 military and police personnel deployed in 18 UN Peacekeeping operations world wide. Today’s UN Peacekeepers have difficult and often complex missions in some of the world’s most dangerous places: Sudan, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Haiti.

For more, click here

UN Peacekeepers on patrol in the DRC. Photo by Refugees International

South Sudan remembers Martyrs

May 16 of every year holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the people of South Sudan - on the Southern Sudanese calendar, this is a public holiday, a day souls of the departed freedom fighters who perished during the liberation movement are remembered. Today the marginalised Sudanese all over the world join in unity to remember and mourn the departed souls.

Special tribute is paid to these liberators who fought to break the bondage of suppression, repression and wide spread marginalization by the Arab dominated Khartoum government against the Christian animists of South Sudan. Today, the region reveres in the prospects of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which has its roots in the 1983 – 2004 strife.

Among those remembered are Kuanyin Bol, Arjok Akuom and Yosuf Kier Tang who survived arrest by the Nimeiri regime as the perpetrators of the 1983 mutiny, William Nyuon Captain David Riek, Arok Thon Arok , Martin Manyiel Ayuel, Francis Ngor and the unforgettable Dr. John Garang among others. All these departed personalities relentlessly served in various capacities to restore the dignity of the people of South Sudan. Right now, hopes are hinged on Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army leadership and partners in progress to continue the struggle in the fight for peace, justice, equality and development for all the Sudanese.


In the photo taken by AFP is Dr. John Garang giving instructions, with fellow SPLA soldiers.

South Sudan: Rebels Threaten Food Security

A recently published report by both the USAID and Famine Early Warning System Network indicates that the sporadic LRA rebel attacks on civilian populations in South Sudan pose a threat to food production in the region, writes Irin News.

The attacks, which intensified after talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA stalled in January, have left 3,500 people displaced in Torit County since February, said the report published by USAID and the Famine Early Warning System Network. "Civil insecurity has grown in Central and Eastern Equatoria states," the report states. "The LRA abandoned the talks and retreated to the Central African Republic (CAR), attacking and looting communities, including parts of Magwi, Kajokeji, Yambio, Tambura and Torit counties, as they fled."

The food security report also noted that while the situation had improved in northern parts of southern Sudan, it was likely to deteriorate as the April/May to August hunger season progresses. This would particularly affect poor and recently resettled households in areas affected by civil insecurity, cattle raiding and where population resettlement is significant. For full article, click here.

Cash-strapped WFP: Crisis Around the Corner?

World Food Program (WFP) Uganda is in dire need of additional funding. In order to maintain the food pipeline in Uganda for refugees, IDPs, schools and hospitals, the agency needs $131 millions for 2007. As of today, it has only received around $44 millions. This means that effectively the programme will seize to distribute food by the end of June.

The lack of funding seems to follow a general pattern in which donors prefer to allocate resources to IDPs rather than to refugees - and to focus on other areas than Uganda.

The shortage is bound to hit all groups of beneficiaries - including Ugandan schools linked to the "Food for Education" program. Evidently, this will be difficult to explain to the refugee community; SHRA monitors have already recorded voices in the Sudanese dominated settlements in Northern Uganda claiming that it is in fact a deliberate policy by the Government, UNHCR and WFP aimed at speeding up the voluntary repatriation process by removing the food support. SHRA follows the situation closely.
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Photo: Soon a thing of the past? WFP food piles up in Nakivale Settlement, Western Uganda.

Enough: The Way Forward in Darfur

Enough! is a joint initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities. It employs a "3P" strategy aimed at promoting durable Peace efforts; providing Protection for innocent victims of mass atrocities; and ensuring Punishment of the perpetrators to break the circle of impunity. The project focuses on Eastern Congo, Northern Uganda and Darfur. Read more about Enough! here.

For an interesting approach to the Darfur-crisis, see John Prendergast, The Answer to Darfur - How to Resolve the World's Hottest War (International Crisis Group: Strategy Paper 1, March 2007). The paper is available at the Enough Project's website.

UNHCR Resumes Repatriation

In a statement released by UNHCR, the agency informs that the repatriation process of refugees from Northern Uganda to South Sudan resumed this week. It was halted for some time due to the meningitis epidemic. A 13-truck convoy carrying around 300 refugees left Imvepi Settlement, Arua District, for Yei in the Central Equatorial Province last Tuesday. The statement also reads that approximately 27.000 refugees have volunteered to return to their homes in Southern Sudan since the process was initiated in May, 2006.

Ex-LRA fighter found in Ikafe Refugee Settlement

On Saturday 24, February 2007, as a refugee woman went about her business in the nearby bush within the Ikafe refugee settlement - Yumbe district (Northwestern Uganda), she stumbled on a young girl taking a nap on bare ground. What started as Samaritan move for the refugee woman, resulted into a realisation that the young girl was a former Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel, fleeing captivity.

She was later taken in to the Officer in Charge of Ikafe police post, who later called in the Yumbe district Police Constable. SHRA staff had an opportunity of interviewing the girl before she was taken to the district police station. Mary Konga-nee name, was captured in 2002 in Mungulu area-Adjumani district, where she had been taken to babysit her Auntie's child. Since then, the world took a horrible turn for her. She was forced into early marriage to a rebel commander with whom she bore a son with. She was also forced to drop her nee name for Mariamu Annet as a ritual for all captives. The memories she has of her captivity was living by the gun, terrorising villages when sent on mission.

Mary says, she saw the peace talks as an opportunity to return to her mother and father, who by the time of her capture lived in Yumbe, but as of now does not know where they are. The disappointment came when, they were ordered to reorganise and relocate by the LRA top commanders. She seized this opportunity to flee captivity; living all she had behind - including her only son, she run away in the night with only a hand grenade as a weapon. She says her journey had taken her roughly five days - where she walked in the night, and rested during the day. At the time of SHRA's visit, the settlement authorities were awaiting the District Police Constable to take her for further protection and interrogation.

Crisis in Darfur: Interview with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir

The "spill-over" of the Darfur crisis into Chad is not a surprise to the President of Sudan, Lt. Gen. Omar al-Bashir: "Frictions and conflicts have always existed between the tribes", he states. According to the President, the entire "Darfur problem" is fabricated and exaggerated by foreign parties.

Click here and read these and other statements made by President al-Bashir in a recent interview published in the Asharq Alawsat Newspaper. The link is to an excerpt at the weblog Sudan Watch published Saturday Feb. 17.

Down the Wrong Road?

A quick glance at todays headlines in the newspaper South Sudan Nation is not encouraging. We are reminded that according to the schedule of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) from January 2005, Southern Sudan should have tarmacked roads within the first 18 months of forming the government, with a reliable road network in place by 2008. It is clear for anyone who has been to South Sudan recently that this is not happening.

Another main story concerns US$ 60 mil. that apparently vanished after being paid to the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) by the central Government in Khartoum back in January 2005.

On a lighter note, we are informed that in Egypt, an SPLM/A official sent by the GoSS to facilitate the repatriation of Southerners from that country spent only one tenth of the money, criminally pocketed more than US$ 300,000 and then returned to Sudan!

The stories go on. In SHRA we find them worrying because the lack of transparent governance in South Sudan is likely to have a negative impact on the repatriation and re-integration of the refugees currently returning to their country.

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(The cartoon above is also from South Sudan Nation - see more here).